CAMPUS

BUZZ

Buzz Cuts

Summary of noteworthy campus happenings

Clean air collaboration. UT Arlington is the first educational entity to partner with Air North Texas. Launched in July, the regional clean air campaign aims to be a comprehensive resource and promote a consistent air quality message. Air North Texas, formed by the North Central Texas Council of Governments with support from the Air Quality Public Relations Task Force, encourages residents to make clean-air choices. Nine North Texas counties, including Tarrant and Dallas, are classified as nonattainment areas for eight-hour ozone levels by the Environmental Protection Agency. Visit www.airnorthtexas.org to learn more.

They wrote the book. What better way to learn the science of politics than to study the career of a successful practitioner. Longtime political science Associate Professor Allan Saxe wanted his students to do original research, so he asked them to extensively profile Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief. Eight undergraduates interviewed Moncrief, former Fort Worth Mayors Bob Bolen and Kenneth Barr, and others for an oral history. A DVD of the interviews can be found in the UT Arlington Library’s Special Collections, as well as the libraries of local community colleges and high schools. The research also generated a book, Decades of Caring: A Chronicle of the Political Life of Mike Moncrief, published by Cengage Learning. It is divided into four sections, each co-written by two students.

The physics of partnerships. The Physics Department has established a joint graduate degree program with the Changwon National University (CNU) Physics Department in Korea. Students will complete coursework and research in Korea and at UT Arlington and receive master’s degrees or doctorates from both institutions. In November 2007 physics Associate Professor Jaehoon Yu and department Chair James Horwitz met with CNU faculty and administrators, including President Seong-Ho Park, on how to structure such a program. Discussion involving faculty and administrators at both institutions, including Graduate School Dean Philip Cohen, led to agreements signed by Park and UT Arlington President James D. Spaniolo. To promote collaboration, CNU hosted a joint physics research symposium in May, while UT Arlington’s Materials Science and Engineering Department is pursuing research and graduate programming with CNU.

Developing leaders. Professor Beth Mancini, associate dean for undergraduate programs in the School of Nursing, has been appointed to the Baylor Health Care Research Professorship. Established in August 2007, the $100,000 professorship promotes research collaboration between UT Arlington and Baylor Health Care System hospitals on leadership development among nurses. Dr. Mancini will focus on strategies that help translate research into nursing practice with an emphasis on developing leaders at the managerial/supervisory level. She will hold the appointment for three years. “Dr. Mancini’s previous experience as senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Parkland Health and Hospital System certainly puts her in the unique position of understanding the challenges of acute care in the hospital setting,” said Carolyn Cason, chair of the professorship selection committee and the School of Nursing’s associate dean for research and director of the Center for Nursing Research.